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Britain's King Charles Meets Cheering Australian Crowds, Says 'Great Joy' to Return

Britain's King Charles and Queen Camilla attend Church on a tour of Australia St Thomas' Anglican Church, North Sydney, Australia, October 20, 2024. Ian Vogler/Pool via REUTERS
Britain's King Charles and Queen Camilla attend Church on a tour of Australia St Thomas' Anglican Church, North Sydney, Australia, October 20, 2024. Ian Vogler/Pool via REUTERS
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Britain's King Charles Meets Cheering Australian Crowds, Says 'Great Joy' to Return

Britain's King Charles and Queen Camilla attend Church on a tour of Australia St Thomas' Anglican Church, North Sydney, Australia, October 20, 2024. Ian Vogler/Pool via REUTERS
Britain's King Charles and Queen Camilla attend Church on a tour of Australia St Thomas' Anglican Church, North Sydney, Australia, October 20, 2024. Ian Vogler/Pool via REUTERS

Hundreds of well-wishers greeted Britain's King Charles and Queen Camilla in Sydney on Sunday as the royal couple attended church, with the king saying it was a "great joy" to return to Australia in his first visit to an overseas realm as sovereign.

Charles' 16th official visit to Australia, where he attended school for six months as a teenager in 1966, is also his first major foreign trip since being diagnosed with cancer, according to Reuters.

"What a great joy it is to come to Australia for the first time as sovereign and to renew a love of this country and its people which I have cherished for so long," he said in a speech at the New South Wales parliament.

New South Wales state lawmaker Kellie Sloane, whose electorate covers some of Sydney's most famous beaches, wrote on social media platform X after chatting with the king that he "sends his best to the 'amazing' surf clubs at Bondi Beach".

The royal couple were earlier greeted at St Thomas' Anglican Church by the archbishop of Sydney, Kanishka Raffel, and children from the church's Sunday school who waved Australian flags.

Camilla was given a flower bouquet by the minister's wife, Ellie Mantle, who asked if they had recovered from jet lag after the long flight to Australia on Friday. "Sort of," Camilla replied.

Inside the church, Charles and Camilla signed two bibles, including one that belonged to Australia's first minister and chaplain of the First Fleet of ships that took convicts from Britain to the penal colony of Australia in 1788.

Outside, the royal couple shook hands and chatted with a large crowd of cheering fans, some singing "God Save the King".

It was the public's first opportunity to meet Charles and Camilla since they arrived in Australia's biggest city on Friday night, and several hundred well wishers outnumbered a dozen protesters.

Travelling across Sydney Harbour, Charles visited the New South Wales parliament, marking the 200th anniversary of Australia's oldest legislature.

The king presented the lawmakers with an hour-glass to time their speeches, and highlighted the fundamental role of strong parliaments to democracies that serve today's diverse societies.

"Democracy has, I believe, an extraordinary capacity for innovation, compromise and adaptability as well as stability," he said.

The royal couple will travel to Canberra on Monday to meet Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at the national parliament and visit the Australian War Memorial.

Albanese met the couple on Friday at Admiralty House, the historic government harbourside residence where they are staying, for what he said was an informal drink and chat.

The king will attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Samoa after the six-day Australia tour.

Charles had made a significant personal donation to create a skills program to tackle climate change and boost higher education in small island states, including the Pacific Islands, the Association of Commonwealth Universities said on Sunday.

Mid-career professionals and civil servants will benefit from the fellowships, in a program that aims to retain talent in small island states and bolster resilience to the impacts of climate change such as rising sea levels.

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Varieties

Turkmenistan's Battle against Desert Sand

For Bokurdak residents, cultivating every square meter is a constant battle with nature. Nikolay Vavilov / AFP
For Bokurdak residents, cultivating every square meter is a constant battle with nature. Nikolay Vavilov / AFP
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Turkmenistan's Battle against Desert Sand

For Bokurdak residents, cultivating every square meter is a constant battle with nature. Nikolay Vavilov / AFP
For Bokurdak residents, cultivating every square meter is a constant battle with nature. Nikolay Vavilov / AFP

Residents in the remote Turkmen village of Bokurdak have long depended on the Karakum Desert for their livelihoods, cultivating every square meter they can in a constant battle with nature.

It is a battle that some fear they are now losing.

Over recent years, large dunes have started encroaching on the land in the village, while rolling desert sands have forced residents to shift further downhill, local pensioner Kakabai Baimedov told AFP.

For those who live in the desert -- known as "gumli" in Turkmen -- this has been "very difficult", Baimedov said.

"The village of Bokurdak used to be on a hill north of this place. Then, due to the advancing desert, we had to move lower and lower," Baimedov told AFP.

While sand and the steppe have always been part of life in Central Asia, scientists warn climate change and other human activities are accelerating desertification and the degradation of the land.

In addition to being an ecological and social problem, desertification is also an economic burden, costing an estimated six percent of Central Asia's GDP annually, according to the World Bank.

The Karakum Desert covers more than 80 percent of Turkmenistan, a former Soviet republic bordering Iran and Afghanistan.

"If its vegetation and soil cover are not properly managed, the surface is easily subject to erosion, degrading farmland and forming sand dunes," Turkmen scientist Mukhammet Durikov told AFP.

Deforestation is another key culprit, while severe droughts and dry winds fueled by climate change are making the problem worse, he said.

Tree-planting campaign

Central Asia is especially vulnerable to climate change: average temperatures in the region have risen by about twice the global average since 1991, according to UN data.

Authorities in Turkmenistan -- a politically isolated country of seven million people -- have sought to curb desertification through a massive tree-planting campaign.

The government announced in the summer that 162 million trees had been planted over the past 20 years.

"The president himself actively participates in the fight against desertification," an official from the environmental ministry told AFP.

The ministry and regional officials are responsible for planting sites for the trees, overseeing their planting and care, the official said.

AFP was not able to immediately verify the government's claims.

The country bordering the Caspian Sea restricts independent reporting and keeps information about government activities largely secret.

Turkmenistan's two leaders, father-and-son duo Gurbanguly and Serdar Berdymukhamedov, have been keen to show they are taking action in combating desertification.

State media shows Serdar regularly appearing with a shovel in hand planting trees.

"Previously, it was spruces or cedars, but today, we find endemic species better adapted to the climate," Merdan Arazmedov, a member of Turkmenistan's Nature Protection Society, told AFP.

Keeping water in the soil

In Bokurdak, scientists have mainly planted saxauls -- a hardy desert shrub whose roots penetrate as much as 15 meters (49 feet) underground to capture water, Arazmedov said.

The saxaul -- which is also being used in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan -- helps retain sand, improves soil moisture, and also serves as a natural barrier for homes.

Baimedov, who has become an amateur botanist, tends to about 15,000 saplings, which are aimed at forming a green wall against the sand.

"It takes 15-20 years to grow a tree like this," he said, pointing to an eight-meter- (26-foot-) high saxaul.

The saxaul is also being used to protect the capital Ashgabat, where "environmental activists have planted more than 50 hectares of saxaul on the edge of the desert," Arazmedov said.

"Now, the road to the capital is no longer covered in sand, traffic flows smoothly, and the number of accidents has decreased," he added.

But for Baimedov, whose main weapon against the desert is planting trees, the battle has become all the harder due to climate change.

"In the past, it was enough to water young saxaul daily with up to 10 liters of water," he said.

"Today, due to climate change and rising temperatures, it takes up to 20 liters each day to ensure rooting."

Turkmenistan has employed other methods to beat the sand.

Last year, scientists in the country announced they had launched successful trials spraying the soil with cyanobacteria, also known as "blue-green algae" -- a method that helps retain moisture and facilitate tree rooting.

In September, Turkmenistan's president proposed creating a regional center against desertification in Central Asia.

Varieties

Saudi National Center for Wildlife, Soudah Development Company Release Birds of Prey

The release comes as part of reintroduction programs aimed at enhancing ecological balance and restoring biodiversity in one of the Kingdom’s most prominent mountainous environmental zones - SPA
The release comes as part of reintroduction programs aimed at enhancing ecological balance and restoring biodiversity in one of the Kingdom’s most prominent mountainous environmental zones - SPA
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Saudi National Center for Wildlife, Soudah Development Company Release Birds of Prey

The release comes as part of reintroduction programs aimed at enhancing ecological balance and restoring biodiversity in one of the Kingdom’s most prominent mountainous environmental zones - SPA
The release comes as part of reintroduction programs aimed at enhancing ecological balance and restoring biodiversity in one of the Kingdom’s most prominent mountainous environmental zones - SPA

Saudi Arabia's National Center for Wildlife (NCW), in cooperation with Soudah Development Company, has released a number of birds of prey in Al-Soudah Park, including three griffon vultures, a black kite, an Arabian scops owl, and an Eurasian sparrowhawk, after rehabilitating them at shelter centers.

 

The release comes as part of reintroduction programs aimed at enhancing ecological balance and restoring biodiversity in one of the Kingdom’s most prominent mountainous environmental zones, SPA reported.

This release followed the completion of rehabilitation and environmental acclimatization stages to ensure the birds’ readiness and ability to adapt to the nature of the area, contributing to the stability of local species and boosting their ecological roles within mountain ecosystems, particularly in regulating food chains and preserving the health of natural habitats.

The NCW noted that this step falls within its ongoing programs to breed and reintroduce threatened wildlife species, rehabilitate ecosystems, and enrich biodiversity across various regions of the Kingdom, in cooperation with national partners and in line with the objectives of the Saudi Green Initiative and the National Environment Strategy, which support the environmental development goals of the Saudi Vision 2030.

Specialized teams will continue to monitor the released birds and track their movements and ecological behavior using dedicated tools and technologies, supporting the evaluation of the program’s success and the improvement of its outcomes in the future in accordance with the best global environmental practices.

Varieties

Ariane 6 Lifts Off with 2 European Navigation Satellites

The European Space Agency (ESA) Ariane 6 rocket carrying two Galileo satellites for the the EU's Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) launches at the Guiana Space Center in Kourou, on the French overseas department of Guiana, on December 17, 2025. (Photo by Ronan LIETAR / AFP)
The European Space Agency (ESA) Ariane 6 rocket carrying two Galileo satellites for the the EU's Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) launches at the Guiana Space Center in Kourou, on the French overseas department of Guiana, on December 17, 2025. (Photo by Ronan LIETAR / AFP)
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Ariane 6 Lifts Off with 2 European Navigation Satellites

The European Space Agency (ESA) Ariane 6 rocket carrying two Galileo satellites for the the EU's Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) launches at the Guiana Space Center in Kourou, on the French overseas department of Guiana, on December 17, 2025. (Photo by Ronan LIETAR / AFP)
The European Space Agency (ESA) Ariane 6 rocket carrying two Galileo satellites for the the EU's Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) launches at the Guiana Space Center in Kourou, on the French overseas department of Guiana, on December 17, 2025. (Photo by Ronan LIETAR / AFP)

A European Ariane 6 rocket blasted off from France's Kourou space base in French Guiana early Wednesday, carrying two Galileo global navigation satellites, according to an AFP correspondent.

Lift-off was at 2:01 am local time (0501 GMT) for the fourth commercial flight of the Ariane 6 launch system since the expendable rockets came into service last year.

The rocket was carrying two more satellites of the European Union's Galileo program, a global navigation satellite system that aims to make the bloc less dependent on the US's Global Positioning System (GPS).

The two satellites were set to be placed in orbit nearly four hours after lift-off.

They will bring to 34 the number of Galileo satellites in orbit and "will improve the robustness of the Galileo system by adding spares to the constellation to guarantee the system can provide 24/7 navigation to billions of users. The satellites will join the constellation in medium Earth orbit 23, 222 km (14,429 miles) above Earth’s surface," according to the European Space Agency (ESA) which oversees the program.

Previous Galileo satellites were primarily launched by Ariane 5 and Russian Soyuz rockets from Kourou.

After Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Europe halted space cooperation with Moscow.

Before the Ariane 6 rocket entered into service in July 2024, the EU contracted with Elon Musk's SpaceX to launch two Galileo satellites aboard Falcon 9 rockets in September 2024 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.